Dr. Tongzhe Li is the Arrell Chair in Behavioural and Experimental Economics, Professor in the Department of Food, Agricultural and Resource Economics (FARE) and is the Founding Director of the FARE Laboratory for Experimental and Applied Economics (FARELab).

Tongzhe’s passion is to combine economic theory and behavioral approaches, such as field or laboratory experiments, to understand the economic and political context of a problem. Her current projects focus on innovation adoption and consumer behavior in an agri-food-environment context. In addition, she is deeply interested in studying social comparison and discrimination issues.

One example of her research is the experimental auction that the FARELab ran, along with the Ontario Soil Network, at Canada’s Outdoor Farm Show in 2022 to learn what messages and messengers work best for sharing information with farmers about various cover crops. They found that not all experts are trusted equally – a key result for groups looking to communicate with producers on food and environmental issues.

Prior to joining FARE and the University of Guelph in 2019, Tongzhe was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Delaware and then assistant professor in the Department of Economics at the University of Windsor. Tongzhe has received her PhD in Economics from Washington State University.

Additional links:

• Read more about Tongzhe’s appointment
• View a list of Tongzhe’s projects
• Learn more about the FARELab